Lee

There is the girl with the colour-coded notes. The guy who has mastered the art of sleeping with his eyes open. The couple in the second row who spend more time staring at each other than at the board.

And, of course, the guy three seats down who has been wearing the same grey hoodie for four lectures in a row. You are beginning to think it is no longer a hoodie and has simply become part of him.

Not that you can judge. The coursework at ESU is no joke. You are probably overdue for an everything shower yourself.

You have just started mentally rearranging your evening around it when Professor Banner walks into the lecture hall.

He carries a coffee in one hand and a stack of papers tucked beneath his other arm, looking exactly as tired as a man teaching university students at what might as well be the crack of dawn has every right to look.

You have known him for years. Sort of.

Bruce Banner had been one of your father’s closest friends. At least, that is what everyone has always told you. 

You met him a handful of times growing up, usually at some formal Stark event or during one of the rare stretches when your father remained in the same country for longer than a week.

Tony Stark loved you. You know that. He just had had a remarkably inconvenient way of showing it.

Most fathers worried about scraped knees and report cards. Yours worried about terrorist organizations, alien invasions, kidnappings, and whether someone might use you as leverage against him. His solution had been to keep you hidden, guarded and, more often than not, somewhere far away from him.

He had called it protection. You thought it was something closer to parenting by wire transfer.

It is difficult to blame him completely. Protecting the world had left very little room in his schedule for school recitals or remembering to call his own daughter. Then he died saving it, which made staying angry with him significantly more complicated.

The Stark name comes with unwanted attention, several buildings you never ask to inherit, and enough public speculation about your life to keep Wikipedia editors employed for decades.

People have opinions about everything. Your clothes, your degree, your water bottle, whether Tony Stark’s daughter is doing enough to continue his legacy.

Apparently, choosing ESU over MIT is worthy of the front-page news, and attending university without inventing the next clean energy breakthrough on the side is considered wasted potential.

Still, you have never been ashamed to carry his name.

Professor Banner is one of the few people at ESU who rarely treats you differently because of it. Which apparently means assigning enough reading to ruin your weekends.

“Morning,” he says.

A scattered chorus of greetings answers him in return, none particularly enthusiastic.

Bruce sets his coffee on the desk and begins connecting his laptop to the projector. The screen flashes blue, then black, then displays his desktop background for several long seconds before he manages to pull up the lecture slides.

“Today, we’re continuing our discussion on cellular responses to gamma radiation—”

The door at the front of the lecture hall creaks open.

Every head in the room turns.

A guy stands in the doorway, slightly out of breath.

Messy brown hair. Faded jacket. Beat-up backpack hanging from one shoulder. He looks around your age, although the dark circles under his eyes suggest he has not slept properly since middle school. You wonder if you’ve ever looked that exhausted.

“Sorry,” he says, slightly out of breath. “Am I late?”

Bruce glances at the clock. “By approximately seven minutes.”

The stranger nods as though this is better than he expected. “Okay. Not terrible.”

Bruce stares at him. The guy stares back. A few people begin to snicker.

Bruce reaches for the attendance sheet on his desk and skims down the page. He checks the second page. You already know everyone who should be present is here. You count the backs of everyone’s heads often enough that you’d notice if someone swapped places.

Bruce’s brow furrows. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

The stranger’s hand tightens around the strap of his backpack. The movement is small, but it catches your eye. 

There is a pause before he responds.

“Maynard.”

“Maynard,” Bruce repeats.

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a last name, Maynard?”

Another pause.

“Also Maynard?”

Someone near the front chokes on a laugh.

Bruce removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “So your name is Maynard Maynard.”

The stranger gives him a small nod. “My parents were big on consistency.”

You press your lips together to suppress a laugh of your own. This guy had to be joking, right? 

Bruce lowers his hand and looks at the attendance sheet again, as though Maynard Maynard might have appeared while he wasn’t looking.

“So you’re a new student?”

“I guess so.”

“You guess?” Bruce looks like he could use a second coffee. It’s not even 8:30.

The new guy just shrugs.

Bruce studies him for a moment. His eyes narrow behind his glasses.

“Huh,” he finally sighs. “Well, either the registrar forgot to update my attendance list or you wandered into the wrong classroom.”

Maynard glances at the lecture slide behind him. “Cellular responses to gamma radiation?”

“Yes.”

“No, this is the right one.”

Bruce gives a tired shrug, apparently deciding that the possibility of an unidentified student infiltrating his lecture is not worth delaying the class any further. “Alright, then. Take a seat.”

Maynard turns toward the rows of students. His eyes find yours almost immediately. They stare at you with a softness that disappears before you can decide what it is.

You glance behind you, half expecting to find someone standing against the wall. Obviously, no one is there.

When you look back, Maynard has lowered his eyes and started climbing the stairs.

He makes it three steps before walking directly into the corner of a desk.

“Sorry,” he mutters to the student sitting at it. Then, inexplicably, he looks at you again.

Your eyes narrow this time. The new guy is weird.

Maynard continues up the stairs, this time paying considerably more attention to the desks in his path. There are several empty seats scattered throughout the back rows, but he ignores all of them in favour of the one right beside you.

Of course he does.

He slides into the chair with practiced ease, shoulders relaxed, backpack tucked neatly between his feet. If not for his entrance, he might have disappeared into the room entirely.

You stare at the empty seat on his other side. Then at him. Then back at the empty chair.

He follows your gaze.

“Oh.” His hand starts reaching for his bag. “Did you want me to move?”

“No.” You’re not entirely sure, to be honest.

“Okay.”

“I’m just wondering why you sat here.”

His eyes flick briefly toward you before darting back to the ongoing lecture at the front of the room.

“It was empty,” he replies quickly.

“So are twelve other seats,” you point out, folding your arms across your chest.

“I like the back.”

“And how would you know that?” you ask. “You’ve never been here before.”

“Maybe I have a feeling about it.”

“A feeling,” you repeat.

“Good acoustics.”

You raise a skeptical brow, looking around the enormous lecture hall.

“I’m really passionate about sound distribution,” he says earnestly.

You hold his gaze for a moment. He gives you an awkward smile.

It is not a particularly convincing smile, but there is something unfairly disarming about it. Maybe it is the way one side of his mouth lifts slightly higher than the other. Maybe it is the faint crease that appears beside his eyes.

Or maybe you are more tired than you thought.

At the front of the room, Professor Banner clears his throat. “Whenever the two of you are finished discussing the architectural merits of the lecture hall, I’d like to resume teaching.”

Several heads turn in your direction.

You blink. You hadn’t even noticed the lecture had stopped. That never happens.

“Sorry,” Maynard says, sinking lower in his chair.

Bruce’s eyes remain on him for a second longer than necessary. He clicks to the next slide. “Gamma radiation is most commonly associated with cellular damage,” he continues. “But under very specific conditions, exposure can trigger an adaptive response rather than cellular death.”

Beside you, Maynard pulls a notebook from his bag. Not a laptop. An actual notebook. The cover is bent, the corners are frayed, and more than half of the pages appear to be held together by hope. He flips it open and starts rummaging through his backpack for something to write with.

You return your attention to the front. That is, you try to.

Maynard checks one pocket. Then another. Then the front pouch. His movements become increasingly frantic.

You watch him turn his bag upside down beneath the desk. A charger, two granola-bar wrappers, a crumpled receipt, and what looks like a sewing kit tumble into his lap. No pencil though.

“Are you moving in?” you whisper.

“Not intentionally,” he groans.

You reach into your own bag and hold out a pencil. His eyes settle on it, then shift to you again. For some reason, the simple gesture seems to catch him off guard.

“It’s a pencil,” you say.

“I know,” he murmurs, staring down at it again.

“I promise it won’t bite. You don’t need to be so suspicious of it.”

Maynard glances up. "I'm not suspicious."

"Then what's with the hesitation?"

He smiles faintly. "I'm just not used to people giving me things."

He takes it carefully, making sure his fingers do not touch yours. “Thanks.”

“You can keep it.”

He raises his eyebrows. The response is so immediate that you almost laugh.

“It cost like eighty cents,” you add. “Try not to make it sentimental.”

“Right. Sorry.” He looks down at the pencil in his hand. His thumb brushes over the eraser at the end once before he begins writing.

You turn back to your laptop, although your attention keeps drifting sideways.

His notes are surprisingly neat. Not colour-coded or meticulously organized, but quick and precise, filled with abbreviations and tiny diagrams. He keeps up with Bruce easily, sometimes writing down the next point before it appears on the slide. It seems that Maynard Maynard is very passionate about gamma radiation.

Bruce reaches a slide covered in chemical equations and turns to face the class. “Can anyone explain why the altered cells remain stable despite the continued production of reactive oxygen species?”

Silence drapes over the room. The girl with the colour-coded notes suddenly finds her keyboard fascinating. The guy in the grey hoodie lowers his head as though hoping camouflage might activate.

Bruce waits. His eyes sweep across the lecture hall before landing, inevitably, on the unfamiliar face beside you. “Maynard.”

Maynard stops writing. “Yes?”

“You’re new.”

“That’s what people keep telling me.”

A few students laugh.

Banner crosses his arms. “Why don’t you take a guess?”

Maynard glances at the equation. For the first time since walking into the room, the uncertainty leaves his expression.

“The mitochondrial pathways are compensating,” he says. “The cells should be collapsing under oxidative stress, but they're redirecting the excess energy into tissue regeneration instead. It's not really stable.” He pauses. “It's more like… tearing a piece of paper while someone tapes it back together at the exact same speed. It never actually falls apart, but it never completely heals either.”

The room goes quiet. 

“Theoretically,” Maynard adds quickly, as though remembering that he is supposed to be guessing.

Bruce’s smiles, looking impressed. “That’s correct.”

Maynard nods and returns his focus to his notebook.

You lean slightly closer to him. “You sure you need the good acoustics back here? You obviously know your stuff.”

He keeps his eyes on the page. “I read ahead.”

“You walked in looking like you didn’t know what class this was less than an hour ago.”

“I read broadly.”

Bruce continues the lecture, but you stop pretending to take useful notes. The stranger beside you is either lying about nearly everything or is somehow the most accidentally suspicious person in New York. Possibly both. 

For the remainder of class, you keep an eye on him. You notice a few things. 

He writes with his left hand but catches the pencil with his right when it rolls toward the edge of the desk. He reacts before it actually falls, fingers closing around it without his gaze leaving the board.

When someone a few rows in front of you sneezes, Maynard flinches a full second before it happens.

When Banner mentions Stark Industries’ early research into clean-energy conversion, the pencil stops moving between his fingers.

And whenever he thinks you are not paying attention, he looks at you.

Not in the usual way though.

You know what it feels like to be stared at. Being Tony Stark’s daughter means strangers have spent most of your life trying to decide whether you resemble him, whether you deserve his money, or whether you possess any hidden trauma they can speculate about online.

Maynard does not look at you with curiosity. He looks at you with familiarity. It feels much more unsettling.

By the time Banner dismisses the class, you have learned precisely three things about cellular responses to gamma radiation and approximately seventeen things about the stranger sitting beside you. Most importantly, he is terrible at pretending not to watch you.

Students begin packing their things. Maynard closes his notebook and holds the borrowed pencil toward you.

“I told you to keep it,” you say, shaking your head to refuse it. “I have a lot more.”

“I don’t want to take it.”

You raise a brow. “You entered a class you may or may not be enrolled in under the name Maynard Maynard, but taking an eighty-cent pen is where you draw the line?”

“I have principles,” he murmurs.

“Do any of them involve using your real name?”

His fingers tighten around the pencil. The awkwardness in his demeanour fades, something guarded appearing in its place. “Maynard is my real name.”

“Sure.”

“It very well could be.”

“But it isn’t.”

He studies you. You study him back. Up close, you notice a faded bruise along his jaw, mostly concealed beneath the curve of his cheek. Another yellowing mark disappears beneath the collar of his shirt.

You glance at his knuckles.

Scraped. Fresh enough that the skin hasn't fully closed.

Maynard follows your gaze and quickly curls his fingers into his palm.

“Boxing,” he says.

“I didn’t ask.”

“You were looking.”

“I look at everyone.”

“I know.” The words leave his mouth too easily.

You go still. He isn’t wrong. You do look at everyone. But the certainty in his voice catches you off guard, like he's stating a fact he's known for years instead of something he noticed over the past two hours.

He seems to realize his mistake at the exact same moment.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” you ask, pushing your chair back as you pack your things.

“Nothing. I mean, you seem observant.”

“You met me fifty-five minutes ago.”

“Fifty-eight.”

You stare at him. He closes his eyes to avoid yours.

“Which is not helping,” he mutters.

“No,” you sigh. “It really isn’t.”

Your new classmate is saved by Professor Banner before he has the chance to invent another terrible lie.

“Maynard.”

You both turn towards the front.

Bruce stands beside the desk with the attendance sheet in his hand. “Could you stay for a moment?”

Maynard glances at you. There it is again. That brief, instinctive look, as though he is checking whether you are safe before allowing you out of his sight.

You sling your bag over your shoulder. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re going to need it, Maynard Maynard.”

His mouth twitches. “You can just call me Maynard.”

“I would rather not call you anything.”

The smile disappears as quickly as it came. Something in his expression makes you feel unexpectedly cruel. You push the feeling aside and head toward the stairs.

You make it all the way to the door before slowing. Not stopping, exactly. The lecture hall has excellent acoustics, apparently. Or maybe you're simply making excuses to listen.

“You're not on my attendance list,” Bruce says.

“I know.”

“Are you enrolled at ESU?”

Maynard pauses before answering. He seems to do that often. “Technically?”

Your steps become impossibly slower.

Banner lets out a tired breath. “That is not generally a word people use before saying yes.”

“I’m sorting out the paperwork.”

“And in the meantime, you decided to attend my lecture.”

“I heard you were a good professor.”

You glance back. Maynard stands in front of Bruce’s desk with his shoulders slightly hunched, looking less like a mysterious criminal mastermind and more like a teenager who has been called into the principal’s office.

Bruce studies him with the same faint crease between his brows as before. “From whom?”

Maynard hesitates. “People.”

“What people?”

“Science people.”

Banner stares blankly at him.

Maynard shifts his weight. “And, you know. You’re famous.”

Banner glances down at his own hands, then back at Maynard.

“There it is,” he says. “That’s usually what appears first on my faculty evaluations.”

Maynard winces.

Banner studies him for a moment. “Most spend the semester waiting for me to turn green.”

Maynard gives a small shrug. “I’ve seen worse.”

At some point, you've stopped pretending you're on your way out. One hand rests on the door handle, but you make no attempt to open it.

Maynard quickly adds, “On the news. I’ve seen worse on the news.”

Bruce is still watching him with that same faint crease between his eyebrows. The expression isn’t unkind though. You decide that Bruce Banner truly has the patience of a saint. Or perhaps that is simply what happens when a person has spent enough years worrying about turning into a giant green rage monster. Eventually, an unidentified student wandering into your lecture becomes a comparatively minor inconvenience.

“Bring me proof of registration next class.”

“I will.”

“And identification.”

Maynard grimaces. “Is that mandatory?”

“It became mandatory when you told me your name was Maynard Maynard.”

You leave before your curiosity convinces you to linger for any longer.

—

By the time you step outside the building, the morning air has lost most of its chill. Students crowd the pathways between buildings, carrying coffees and complaining loudly about assignments they have known about for several weeks.

You check the time. Three hours until your next class.

Normally, you would head to the library. Today, the promise of the leftover takeout waiting in your refrigerator wins out.

Your apartment is only a few subway stops away from campus. It is smaller than anything most people expect a Stark to live in, which is part of why you chose it. 

The building does not have a doorman, a private landing pad, or windows capable of withstanding a missile strike. 

It does have rent that makes you question the economic stability of New York City, but that feels almost normal.

You cross the courtyard and pull out your phone.

Three missed emails. One reminder that your tuition payment is due. Four separate headlines containing the words STARK HEIRESS, all of which you ignore on principle.

You clear the notifications without opening them and continue toward the subway.

Maynard should leave your thoughts somewhere between campus and the station. He does not.

Instead, your mind keeps returning to the way he looked at you. Not interested. Not exactly.

People look at you with interest all the time. They look at your last name, your bank account, and whatever expression happens to be on your face when someone mentions Iron Man. You recognize curiosity. You recognize greed. You recognize the particular brand of badly concealed pity reserved for the daughter of a dead Avenger.

Maynard’s expression had been different.

He had looked relieved. That is what bothers you.

Relief implies expectation. Expectation implies he knew you would be there.

You nearly miss your train while thinking about it.

“Great,” you mutter, slipping through the closing doors at the last second. “Now I’m profiling strange men on public transportation.”

An elderly man glances at you from the nearest seat.

“Not you,” you assure him.

He moves his bag closer to his chest.

The ride home is uneventful, which in New York generally means no one starts a fight, releases a wild animal, or announces the impending end of the world. 

You stop for coffee on the way to your building and manage to convince yourself that Maynard is probably just awkward. Very, suspiciously awkward, but awkward nonetheless.

When you arrive, you notice the elevator in your building is still out of service.

A handwritten sign has been taped over the doors.

SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Someone has added NO YOU’RE NOT underneath it in red marker.

At least someone corrected the misinformation.

You make the trek up the stairs. By the fourth floor, the coffee no longer feels worth carrying. By the fifth, you have mentally composed an email to your landlord containing the words negligence, legal action and I know people, although the last one feels embarrassingly close to something your father would have said. You decide to scrap the unwritten email.

You push open the stairwell door with your shoulder. 

The hallway is a mess.

Boxes cover more than half of it. Some are sealed neatly. Others are taped haphazardly. A rolled mattress leans against the wall beside a small wooden desk. There is a chair with only three visible legs and a cardboard box with several old labels aggressively scratched out. In one corner, someone has written MAYBE KITCHEN? in black marker.

The door to the apartment across from yours is wide open.

Someone is finally moving into 6B.

You have been enjoying the empty unit for the past three months. No neighbour means no complaints when you play music at questionable volumes, no awkward small talk while unlocking your door, and no one noticing how frequently you order enough takeout for a family of six during exam seasons.

You suppose it was too much to hope the vacancy would last forever.

A crash sounds from inside the apartment, followed almost immediately by a muffled, “I’m okay.”

You raise an eyebrow just as someone backs through the doorway carrying a stack of boxes high enough to hide most of his face. All you can see at first is a faded jacket, beat-up sneakers and a mess of brown hair above the cardboard.

Then he turns.

Your heart sinks to the soles of your feet.

Maynard’s eyes meet yours over the top box, and he freezes so suddenly that the stack shifts in his arms. One box slips sideways, but his hand shoots out before it can fall, catching it so quickly that, for a second, you wonder whether your eyes simply failed to keep up.

A second later, it is balanced securely against his hip as though nothing happened.

Neither of you speaks.

You look at the box, then at him, then past his shoulder into the open apartment across from yours. Maynard follows your gaze before his eyes drift to the small brass 6A fixed above your door. Something complicated passes over his face.

“Oh,” he says.

You stare blankly at him.

He attempts a smile. It is the same awkward smile from class, but somehow worse now. “Hi.”

“No.”

His smile disappears. “No?”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You do not get to say hi like this is a normal coincidence,” you say, fuming.

Maynard adjusts the boxes in his arms, shifting the weight against his chest. “People live across from other people all the time.”

“You appeared in my class this morning under a fake name.”

He furrows his brows. “It’s not fake.”

“Your name cannot be Maynard Maynard.”

“You don’t know that.”

You gesture between his open apartment and your own door. “And now you live across the hall from me.”

“I moved in yesterday.”

“You were not here yesterday.”

“I started moving in yesterday.” He tries to correct himself.

“There were no boxes yesterday,” you state firmly.

Maynard hesitates for half a second. “I moved the invisible ones first.”

You say nothing, momentarily too offended by his audacity to form a response.

He closes his eyes briefly, as though replaying the sentence and finding it just as bad the second time. “That sounded better in my head.”

“I doubt that,” you mutter, looking past him into the apartment.

It is mostly empty. A small couch sits on the floor beside the window, still wrapped in plastic. A half-built shelving unit leans crookedly against one wall. On the kitchen counter, there is a bag of white bread, a jar of peanut butter, and exactly one mug.

The place does not look staged. Honestly, it barely looks inhabited. You’re not sure whether or not that should make you feel better.

“When did you sign the lease?” you ask.

“A little while ago.”

“How long is a little while?”

“A few days.”

“In New York City?”

He shrugs. “I got lucky.”

“And it just so happens that your luck landed you across the hall from me?”

His grip tightens around the bottom box. “I didn’t know you lived here.”

You decide his answer came too quickly for your liking. You fold your arms across your chest. “Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“My name is on the buzzer downstairs.”

“I didn’t notice. I was distracted.”

“By what?”

“The stairs.”

“It looks like you’ve survived them several times already.” You gesture to the boxes scattered across the floor. The hallway was spotless when you left for class this morning. Now they’re everywhere, and he doesn’t look like he broke a sweat.

“They’re very distracting stairs.”

He has to be lying. People notice the name Stark. It’s almost impossible not to.

They notice it on credit cards, reservation lists, and packages left outside your door. They notice it even when you wish they wouldn’t, usually right before deciding they want an autograph, an investment, or access to something your father left behind.

And yet Maynard expects you to believe he signed a lease directly across the hall from Tony Stark’s daughter without so much as glancing at the buzzer.

You narrow your eyes at him. “Do you usually sign leases without checking the neighbours?”

“I was more focused on whether the ceiling leaked.”

“Does it?”

“Only in one corner.” Maynard shifts the boxes against his chest. “Look, I’m not after your money.”

You go still. “I didn’t say you were.” 

“You were thinking it.”

He was right. You were.

“Well, I wasn’t,” you lie. “Besides, I think you’re out of luck.”

He blinks.

You shrug. “Contrary to popular belief, I don’t keep stacks of cash hidden in my apartment.”

He looks offended. “I wasn't implying you did.”

“Good. Because that would be a terrible business plan.”

Up close, you can see the bruise along his jaw again. It looks darker in the hallway lighting. There is another faint mark near his temple, partly hidden by his hair.

Whatever he does in his spare time, you doubt it’s boxing. Not the type of boxing you’re familiar with anyway.

“Are you following me?” you ask.

Maynard nearly drops the boxes again. “What? No.”

“You showed up in my class, sat beside me, and moved across the hall all in one day.”

“I didn’t move here today,” Maynard says.

You rub your temples. “That is not a denial of the rest.”

His expression tightens. “I’m not following you.”

“Then why did you sit next to me?”

“I already told you. I like the back.”

“For the acoustics,” you quote, rolling your eyes.

“Exactly.”

You consider adding another bruise to his face. “That was a joke.”

“I thought we had established it was a deeply held academic preference.”

“And you kept staring at me.”

“I wasn’t staring,” he protests.

“You walked into a desk.”

“The desk came out of nowhere.”

“It was bolted to the floor.”

“They’re getting smarter.”

Despite yourself, a laugh slips out.

It is barely more than a breath, but you can tell Maynard hears it. The tension leaves his face so quickly that it catches you off guard. For one brief second, he looks at you with such open fondness that the laugh dies in your throat.

And there it is again. That look. As though your laugh is familiar. Like he has heard it a thousand times and spent far too long waiting to hear it again. Like it belongs to a memory you do not share.

His smile fades the moment he notices you are no longer smiling back.

You school your face. “You keep doing that.”

He frowns. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like that.”

Maynard’s gaze drops to the floor between you. “I’m sorry.”

The apology is so quiet that it unsettles you more than any denial could.

You slowly uncross your arms. “Do we know each other?”

His head lifts. For the shortest moment, hope flashes across his face. Bright, immediate, and gone before you can make sense of it.

“No,” he says. The word lands too carefully.

You study him, waiting for the awkward smile or another ridiculous excuse, but this time he does not look away.

There are people who can lie without blinking. Your father had been one of them. Tony Stark could stand in front of a room full of reporters, tell them an airborne weapons platform was a weather-monitoring satellite and make half of them feel stupid for questioning him.

Maynard is not that kind of liar.

His shoulders are too stiff. His mouth presses into a thin line. His eyes hold yours with the intensity of someone trying very hard not to say anything else.

He is lying. You just do not know about what.

A door opens at the far end of the hallway.

Mrs. Wen steps out of 6D carrying a small bag of recycling. She pauses when she sees his open apartment door.

“Oh, good,” she says, facing Maynard. “You found your key.”

He glances at her. “Yeah. Thank you for your help. It’s been a long day.”

“It’s not even noon,” she points out.

“Long morning.” He corrects himself with a kind smile.

The older woman turns her attention to you. “Your new neighbour is very polite.”

You sigh. “Well, that’s reassuring.”

She nods, looking at Maynard approvingly. “He carried my groceries upstairs earlier today.”

You look at Maynard. He shrugs. “The elevator’s broken.”

“It has been broken for six days,” Mrs. Wen tells him. Then she turns back to you. “You never offered to carry my groceries.”

You swallow a groan and smile sweetly. “Mrs. Wen, I carried them upstairs on Tuesday.”

She squints at you. “Did you?”

“And last Friday.”

Mrs. Wen’s brow furrows.

Maynard clears his throat. “She probably helps so often it all blends together.”

You stare at him, momentarily stunned that he has chosen to back you up.

Mrs. Wen looks between the two of you with far too much interest. “You two know each other?”

“No,” you say.

“Yes,” Maynard says at the same time.

You shoot him a glare.

“From class,” he adds quickly. “We met in class.”

“This morning,” you clarify.

Mrs. Wen smiles. You know that smile. It’s the same one she gave you when the barista at the cafe across the street started making your order before you even reached the counter.

“Well,” she says, “now you can walk to school together.”

You wonder if you could get away with strangling a senior citizen. Probably not.

“We will not be doing that,” you say firmly. Maynard opens his mouth. You point a finger at him. “Do not agree with her.”

He closes it again.

Mrs. Wen’s smile deepens. “Very nice.”

She continues toward the stairwell, taking her recycling with her.

You pinch the bridge of your nose as her footsteps fade. So much for relying on Mrs. Wen as a credible witness when Maynard’s stalking inevitably ends you both up in court.

The faint rip of cardboard draws your attention back to him. The bottom of the lowest box is beginning to sag beneath its contents.

“You should put those down before the bottom gives out,” you say warily.

“It’s fine.”

The cardboard tears a little farther, allowing the end of a lamp cord to slip through the opening.

Maynard glances down at it. “Still fine.”

He turns toward his apartment, but the weakened cardboard gives way before he reaches the door.

A corner of the box splits open, spilling books and loose tools across the hallway. The lamp remains wedged inside for a fraction of a second before its weight tears through the remaining cardboard. It slips base-first toward the floor, the exposed bulb following behind it.

Maynard’s hand shoots out.

He catches the lamp by its metal stem just before the bulb strikes the hardwood.

The movement is almost too fast to follow. One moment, the lamp is falling among the scattered books. The next, it hangs securely from his hand, the glass suspended only inches above the floor.

A wrench skids toward you, and you step aside before it can strike your ankle.

For a moment, neither of you speaks.

Maynard slowly straightens, still holding the lamp.

You look at the mess scattered across the hallway, then at the unbroken glass in his hand. “How did you do that?”

His gaze follows yours. “Do what?”

“Catch that.”

“Reflexes.”

You shake your head. “That was not just reflexes.”

“It felt a lot like reflexes.”

“It looked like you knew the lamp was falling before the box even opened.”

“The cardboard was tearing,” he responds dismissively.

“So you caught a glass lamp without looking?”

“I looked,” he insists.

“For half a second.”

“Apparently, that was enough.” He places the lamp carefully on the small wooden desk beside the wall, giving you a small smile. “You’d be surprised what people can do under pressure.”

“I once watched my father redirect a nuclear missile through a portal into space,” you murmur. “My standards for surprising are unusually high.”

The amusement at your shock leaves Maynard’s face. Something quieter takes its place. It’s not pity. You have seen enough of that to recognize it immediately. 

It’s grief.

Your fingers curl at your side.

Very few people have earned the right to look like that when you mention your father. Friends. Family. The people who fought beside him.

Not a man you met a few hours ago.

“What?” you ask.

Maynard blinks, and the expression disappears. “Nothing.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And that.”

He crouches beside the torn box and begins gathering the books scattered around his feet.

You glance down.

Most are science texts. Physics. Biochemistry. Electrical engineering. A battered GED preparation guide from a few years back sits among them, its spine cracked open to a page filled with pencilled calculations.

None of them has his name written inside.

You crouch before you can talk yourself out of helping him, picking up the nearest book. A photograph slips from between the pages.

You reach for it.

He gets there first.

His hand closes over the photograph before you can see more than a flash of red and gold.

Your eyes meet his. “What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

You huff. “You have got to learn another word.”

“It’s just a picture.”

“Of?”

His fingers curl around it. Something protective settles over his expression. “Someone I used to know.”

The answer is honest. You can tell because it sounds nothing like the others. 

You look at his closed fist.

Red and gold could mean anything. An old Iron Man postcard. A newspaper clipping. Some cheap piece of Avengers merchandise. You wouldn’t be surprised if half the city owns something with your father’s face on it.

That does not explain why Maynard looks like the picture in his grip hurts.

“Your apartment is across the hall,” you say. “Your class schedule apparently matches mine, and you own mystery photographs you refuse to explain.”

He sighs. “I know how it looks.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Do you?”

“Bad,” he admits.

“Extremely.”

“I promise I’m not following you.”

“You already promised your name was Maynard.”

“I never promised that.”

You roll your eyes. “That is not the defence you think it is.”

He tucks the photograph into the back pocket of his jeans and gathers the remaining tools. You hand him the wrench that had almost taken you out earlier.

“I’m going inside,” you say, finally turning away from him.

“That’s probably good.”

“And I’m locking my door.”

His mouth twitches. “Also probably good.”

“If I see you lurking outside it, I’m calling the police,” you warn him.

“I won’t lurk.”

“And if for some reason, you decide to climb through my window to rob me, I’m calling the Avengers.”

The amusement leaves his face. Just for a second. You almost miss it.

“The Avengers?” he repeats lightly.

“I still have a few numbers,” you admit.

That is not entirely true.

You have Pepper’s number. Happy’s too, although your last conversation ended with him scolding you to stop sending suspicious packages to his office simply because his security team “needed the practice.”

Most of the Avengers are scattered now. Retired, missing, dead, or otherwise unavailable to handle your disputes with weird neighbours.

Maynard doesn’t need to know that though.

“I’ll make note of that,” he says.

You turn toward your apartment and slide the key into the lock. As usual, it refuses to turn. You jiggle it once, annoyed.

“Lift the handle first,” Maynard says behind you.

Your hand stills. Slowly, you look over your shoulder. He is crouched beside the ruined box, gathering the last of his books.

“What did you say?”

“The handle.” He keeps his eyes on the floor. “Lift it while you turn the key.”

“How do you know that?”

He glances up. “Old locks stick.”

You face the door again, lift the handle and turn the key twice.

The lock clicks open.

A prickle runs across your skin.

You look back at him. “You guessed the exact trick to my front door?”

Maynard rises, the remains of the torn box hanging from one hand. “Lucky guess.”

“You’re having an unusually lucky week.”

Maynard shrugs, the torn remains of the box still hanging from one hand. “I saw the superintendent do it yesterday.”

“Mr. Kowalski hasn’t been above the second floor since his hip surgery.”

You know no one else has touched the lock, either. The Stark security system monitors every attempted entry, and it would have alerted you if so much as an unfamiliar fingerprint brushed the handle.

Maynard is lying directly to your face. Every sensible instinct tells you to go inside, lock the door, and start hunting for a new apartment. You’ve been playing with danger for far too long.

But curiosity keeps you rooted to the spot. You have no idea why you are still humouring him, only that every terrible excuse makes you want to hear the next one.

Maybe curiosity really did kill the cat.

“Someone else, then,” he says.

“Who?” you demand.

“I don’t know.”

“You watched an unidentified person unlock my apartment?”

His eyes widen. “That sounded a lot worse than I meant it to.”

“You think?” You shake your head in exasperation.

Maynard presses his lips together. “I’m going to stop talking now.”

“That may be the smartest thing you’ve said all day.”

You step inside your apartment before turning around one last time to face him.

Maynard stands in the hallway amid his scattered belongings, looking as though there are a thousand things he wants to say and not one of them is safe.

You tighten your grip on the edge of the door. “Stay away from my apartment. I mean it.”

“I will.”

“And stop watching me.”

Something passes across his face. Pain, perhaps. It vanishes beneath a small nod. “I’ll try.”

You narrow your eyes. “That’s not the answer I was looking for.”

“I know.”

You finally close the door, lock it, and throw the deadbolt. After a moment’s hesitation, you slide the security chain into place too.

Silence settles over the apartment.

You remain there with your ear pressed to the door, listening as cardboard scrapes across the hallway. Something heavy, probably one of the books, hits the floor, followed by Maynard muttering under his breath.

Sounds normal enough.

You should walk away, heat up your lunch, and stop wasting what limited time you have before your next class. Instead, you turn and lean toward the peephole.

The fisheye lens warps the hallway beyond it.

Maynard is still standing outside his apartment. He has not returned to gathering his belongings. He is not even looking at the mess scattered around his feet.

He is staring directly at your door.

Your pulse quickens. Whether it is fear or curiosity, you cannot tell. Probably both. Either way, allowing the conversation to continue for as long as it did suddenly feels less amusing than it had in the hallway.

As though he can sense you watching, Maynard slowly lifts his gaze.

His eyes settle on the peephole.

You jerk backward.

“Absolutely not,” you mutter to yourself under your breath.

You retreat into the kitchen.

The apartment is secure. Far more secure than it appears, anyway. The locks are reinforced, the windows are alarmed, and the innocent-looking panel beside the thermostat contains enough Stark technology to alert three different emergency services if someone so much as breathes incorrectly near your front door.

Happy insisted on installing it after you moved out of the compound. You had called it excessive.

He reminded you that attempted kidnappings tend to alter a person’s definition of excessive.

Neither of you won the argument.

You carry your coffee to the counter and set it down. A thin stream has escaped beneath the lid, soaking through the cardboard sleeve.

With a sigh, you rub your temples.

Your new neighbour has a fake name, knows how to open your lock, and looks at you as though he has spent years missing you.

Weirdly, that last part bothers you most.

The sensible thing would be to call someone.

Happy, perhaps. Or Pepper.

Possibly the police, although explaining that your neighbour is suspicious because he has unusually fast reflexes and an unsettling amount of knowledge about faulty lock mechanisms may not inspire an immediate response.

You settle for something slightly less invasive.

Retrieving your laptop from your school bag, you open the ESU student directory. The search bar blinks expectantly.

You type MAYNARD MAYNARD.

No results.

“Shocking.”

You delete the second name and try again.

Three Maynards appear.

Maynard Ellis, a graduate student in economics.

Maynard Rivera, a retired faculty member.

Maynard Cook, whose profile picture suggests he graduated approximately twenty years before you were born.

None of them has messy brown hair, freckles, or an apparent allergy to telling the truth.

You search the course roster next.

Nothing.

You try every variation you can think of—MAYNARD M., M. MAYNARD, new transfers, exchange students—but there is no record of him anywhere.

You close the laptop.

Whatever his real name is, you will find it eventually.

After class, though. Unlike him, you are actually enrolled here.

—

By the time you leave campus that evening, the sun has already disappeared behind the skyline.

Your final lecture ends shortly after five, but an unexpected meeting with your academic adviser keeps you on campus longer than planned. Then your lab runs nearly two hours over because one of your partners insists on measuring everything in ounces.

You explain the metric system twice.

On the third attempt, you consider allowing natural selection to take its course.

It is nearly nine when you finally step outside.

The campus is quieter than usual. Most of the surrounding buildings have emptied, leaving only a handful of students crossing the courtyard beneath yellow pools of lamplight.

Your phone vibrates in your hand.

HAPPY: Dinner Sunday. Pepper and Morgan want to see you.

A second message arrives before you can answer.

HAPPY: That wasn’t a request btw.

You smile despite yourself.

YOU: I’ll check my schedule.

You put your phone away. 

You will be there. You always are. Happy knows that too. He simply likes pretending your attendance requires negotiation.

As you approach it, you notice the subway entrance closest to the chemistry building has already been gated off for overnight maintenance. According to the sign zip-tied to the railing, it closed at eight.

Of course it did.

You decide to walk to the station you used that morning, even though it is several blocks farther away. It usually stays open later, and the route is your usual one despite the shuttered cafes and darkened storefronts lining the way.

You make it two blocks before noticing the footsteps behind you. Not because they are loud. Because they match yours.

You stop outside a closed bookstore and pretend to examine the display. The reflection in the glass shows two men about twenty feet behind you.

One of them is tall and broad beneath a dark coat. The shorter one wears a baseball cap pulled low over his face.

Neither appears particularly interested in the bookstore window.

You start walking again.

A few seconds later, footsteps resume behind you.

You try to calm yourself down. They could just be headed in the same direction. New York is crowded, even after rush hour. 

Although, it doesn’t help that Maynard Maynard has already spent the day encouraging levels of paranoia you would normally consider unreasonable.

You pick up your pace toward the station. Hopefully if there are enough eye-witnesses around, they’ll back off.

The footsteps follow.

At the following intersection, you cross without waiting for the light. When you glance at the dark reflection of a parked car, both men are crossing behind you.

Your hand slips into your bag and closes around the compact security device clipped inside.

To anyone else, it looks like an ordinary key fob.

It is not.

One press alerts Happy’s security team. Two activates the emergency beacon sewn into the lining of your jacket. Three releases enough voltage to make whoever is touching you reconsider every choice that led them to that moment.

You have never needed to press it. You would prefer to keep it that way.

The street ahead narrows between two construction sites. Temporary fencing blocks the pavement on one side, while scaffolding casts the other into shadow.

You do not enter it. Instead, you stop beneath the brightest streetlight and turn around.

The two men stop too, a few feet behind you, but still too close for comfort.

“You’re really not being very subtle,” you call out, hoping your voice sounds steadier than you feel.

The taller man glances at his companion before looking back at you. “We just want to talk.”

“People who want to talk usually start with ‘hello.’” You tighten your grip around the fob. “They don’t follow someone for three blocks.”

“We know who you are,” the shorter man says, his voice thin and nasal.

“That makes one of us. I have no idea who either of you are.”

The taller man takes a step closer.

You raise the key fob between you. “Before you continue, this is a Stark Industries personal defence system.”

Technically, it was manufactured by a Stark subsidiary nearly five years ago and currently has fourteen percent battery life, but they do not need to know that.

The man stops, his gaze dropping to your hand.

“That what we’re looking for?” he asks his friend.

“No, you idiot,” the nasally one responds. “That’s the shit that electrocutes you.”

The taller one smiles. You dislike that immediately.

“We heard Stark left behind more than money,” he says.

“A billionaire with assets other than money? Incredible detective work. Did the internet tell you that?”

“He left systems,” the shorter one says, closing in behind his friend.

Your amusement fades. “What systems?”

“Systems you can access.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. People will believe anything if Tony Stark’s name is attached to it.

There are no more secret networks waiting for you to inherit, no hidden weapons vault only his daughter can open. Anything your father left behind has already been catalogued, dismantled, or locked down by Pepper, Happy, and enough lawyers to populate a small country.

These two are idiots. Unfortunately, idiots can still be dangerous.

You let out a short laugh, sharper than you intend. “My father has been dead for years. Whatever you think he left behind, you’re welcome to submit a request through Stark Industries’ legal department like everyone else.”

The shorter man in the baseball cap moves first.

You press the button on the fob.

Nothing happens.

You press it again. This time, the indicator flashes red: INSUFFICIENT CHARGE.

You stare at it. You had assumed fourteen percent would be enough to prevent at least one kidnapping.

Apparently not.

The man’s hand closes around your wrist.

You drive the heel of your shoe down onto his foot and slam your free palm into his nose.

He releases you with a shout.

The taller man lunges.

You duck beneath his arm and shove the useless security device into your pocket. Your elbow connects with his ribs, but he barely reacts. One hand catches the back of your jacket before you can get away.

The fabric jerks tight across your throat, cutting off your breath. You claw at the collar as it digs into your skin, but every attempt to pull free only makes it tighten further.

A strand of white webbing shoots down from somewhere above and splatters across the man’s face.

“What the—”

He is ripped backward so violently that both feet leave the pavement.

You stumble forward, bracing your hand against the nearest wall, and dragging in a breath as the fabric around your throat finally loosens.

The man in the baseball cap reaches inside his coat.

A second web catches his wrist and snaps his arm against the construction fence. A third seals over his mouth before he can shout.

Spider-Man drops from the scaffolding a heartbeat later, landing between you and the two men in a low crouch, one hand braced against the pavement.

You have seen him before. Everyone with an internet connection has seen Spider-Man.

Blurry phone footage. News reports. Edits of him fighting monsters from outer space. Entire conspiracy threads dedicated to determining whether there is more than one of him, whether he is secretly an alien, and whether the white lenses of his mask can actually blink.

They very much can.

The eye lenses narrow as he looks at the men.

“Following women at night?” he asks. “Really? That’s what we’re doing now?”

The taller man claws at the web covering his face.

Spider-Man rises. “You know, there are much easier ways to embarrass yourselves. Karaoke. Improvisational comedy. Cryptocurrency.”

The man in the baseball cap swings his free arm.

Spider-Man leans back. The fist passes an inch from his face.

“That was almost very threatening,” he quips before catching the man’s arm, turning, and webbing both of his wrists to the fence.

The taller one finally manages to pull the webbing away from his eyes. He charges at the vigilante.

Spider-Man does not even turn around. 

His hand shoots backward, catches the man by the front of his coat, and uses his momentum to flip him onto the pavement.

The impact rattles the temporary fencing.

You wince.

Spider-Man glances over his shoulder at you. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Your hand is bleeding.”

You look down. A shallow cut crosses your palm, probably from catching yourself against the rough brick wall. You hadn’t noticed it. “It’s fine. Just a scratch.”

“You should clean it when you get home.”

“Thank you, WebMD.”

The white lenses widen slightly. Then he laughs.

The sound catches you off guard. He sounds much younger than you expected. Not like some gravel-voiced vigilante speaking through a modulator, but breathless and almost boyish behind the mask.

The man on the pavement groans.

Spider-Man turns back toward him. “Oh, good. You’re awake.”

“I’m going to kill you,” he grunts.

If you could see his face, you were sure the hero would be rolling his eyes. “See, that’s exactly the kind of thing that makes people not want to help you up.”

Sirens sound several streets away.

Spider-Man webs the taller man’s wrists together and secures him to the construction fence beside his companion. He gives each strand a sharp tug, apparently satisfied when neither of them moves more than a few inches.

Then he turns to you. “Besides the hand, are you sure you’re not hurt?”

The question is quieter than everything else he has said.

You touch the tender skin beneath your collar. Your throat aches, and your heart is still beating hard enough to make your hands tremble, but you are standing. Breathing. Neither of which had felt guaranteed a minute ago.

“I’m fine.” Your voice comes out rough. You clear your throat. “Thanks to you.”

His shoulders loosen slightly. “Okay. Good.”

For a moment, neither of you says anything. The two men struggle uselessly behind him while sirens wail somewhere in the distance, growing steadily louder.

Spider-Man glances toward the end of the street before looking back at you. “Come on. I’ll walk you home.”

The offer is kind. Probably.

Still, your father spent years teaching you that colourful, high-tech masks did not automatically make someone trustworthy. According to Tony, even the best heroes could be reckless, secretive, and catastrophically bad at explaining themselves. 

You knew he spoke from experience.

You lower your hand from your throat. “I appreciate the rescue, but I can manage from here.”

“You were almost kidnapped,” Spider-Man protests. “And whoever sent them might have sent someone else.”

The thought wipes away what little humour you had managed to find in the situation.

The vigilante seems to notice. His voice softens. “I’m not trying to scare you. I just don’t think you should finish your usual route alone.”

You look at him. “My usual route?”

He goes still.

The distant sirens continue to approach.

“I meant this route,” he says after a beat. “The route you’re currently on.”

“You said I usually take it.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

Your gratitude does not disappear, but caution settles beside it. You narrow your eyes slightly. “How would you know that?”

He shrugs a little too casually. “I just guessed.”

“You guessed that I regularly walk down this particular street?”

“It’s near the university.”

“There are at least a dozen streets near ESU.”

He shifts his weight. “This one seemed the most likely.”

“Based on?”

“General geography?” he offers, tilting his head to the side slightly.

You fold your arms, and his head tips back with what looks suspiciously like resignation.

“I promise I wasn’t following you,” he says. “I was just patrolling.”

“It’s convenient how you just happened to be passing by when I needed help.”

“Well, that is usually the point of patrolling.”

You stare at him.

He stares back. Or you assume he does. The mask makes it difficult to tell.

You try to hold onto your suspicion, but the breathless defensiveness in his voice makes it difficult. A reluctant smile pulls at your mouth. “You’re strange.”

“That’s harsh coming from someone who tried to bluff two kidnappers with a dead key fob.”

You glance down at the device still clenched in your hand. “How did you know it was dead?”

“You pressed it three times.”

“Well, it does have a three-button activation sequence.”

“Maybe. But I saw it flash red.”

You’re bewildered. “You could see that from the scaffolding?”

He pauses, as though he’s contemplating how much he should share with you. “Not to brag, but I do have excellent eyesight.”

“Even through the mask?”

“The lenses definitely help.”

You study the shifting white lenses more closely. “Who made them?”

“I did.”

“You built the suit yourself?”

“Mostly.”

Now that no one is actively trying to drag you into an unmarked vehicle, you allow yourself a proper look at him. The red and blue material hugs his body, patterned with white webbing that stretches across his chest and shoulders toward the black spider emblem at its centre.

It doesn’t look homemade. But then again, neither did your dad’s suits, which had definitely been manufactured with his own two hands. Every seam appears deliberate, and the lenses move with an expressiveness no store-bought mask should be capable of.

“You did a good job,” you say.

The lenses widen. “Oh.”

“Why do you sound surprised?” Your brows furrow with confusion. “It’s an honest comment.”

“I guess I just wasn’t expecting you to say that.”

“Why not?”

His posture changes almost imperceptibly. A slight tension in his shoulders. A careful pause before he answers. “No reason.”

That retreat is unnervingly familiar.

Maynard seems to do the same thing whenever he says more than he intended. The comparison sends a strange unease through you.

“Have we met before?” you ask.

Spider-Man becomes completely motionless.

For half a second, the street seems quieter. Even the men straining against the webbing fade into the background.

Then he tilts his head. “I think you’d remember meeting Spider-Man.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s adjacent to one.”

Red and blue light begins to flash against the buildings as the first police car turns onto the street.

Spider-Man looks toward it. “I should go.”

“You’re abandoning me now?”

“You told me not to walk you home.”

“I also don’t particularly want to explain how two criminals ended up webbed to a fence by myself.”

He gestures toward them. “Tell the police your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man handled it.”

You laugh. “That sounds rehearsed.”

“It’s branding,” he says, one of the lenses closing fully to shoot you a wink.

He fires a web towards the roof of the building adjacent to where you were standing. The strand catches somewhere above, and he bends his knees before springing into a powerful jump.

He disappears over the edge of the roof.

You stare after him while red and blue lights spill across the pavement.

Being rescued should not leave you with more questions than being kidnapped.

⸻

The police keep you for nearly forty minutes.

You answer questions, decline an ambulance, and make the mistake of mentioning that your father’s old technology may have motivated the attempted kidnapping.

That results in three additional officers arriving.

While one of the officers takes your statement, your attention keeps drifting toward the dark sedan parked a few feet from where the men cornered you. Its engine is still running, and the rear passenger door hangs slightly open.

You had not noticed it during the struggle. Now, it is quite obvious where they had intended to take you.

The windows are tinted deeply enough that you cannot see inside. You cannot stop imagining that door closing behind you.

By the time they allow you to leave, Happy has called six times.

You do not know who notified him. Possibly the Stark security system you had tried to activate earlier. Apparently fourteen percent was enough to alert Happy that something was wrong, but not enough to activate any of the protocols that might have actually helped. How convenient.

You answer as you walk. “I’m fine.”

“Where are you?” he demands through the phone.

“On my way home.” 

“Stay where you are.”

“Happy, I’m five minutes away from the station. I’ll call you as soon as I get there,” you reassure him.

“I already sent a car,” Happy says. “It’ll be there soon.”

Your eyes drift back to the sedan at the curb. The open rear door. The dark windows.

Your stomach tightens. “No car.”

“What do you mean, no car?”

“I mean I’m not getting into one tonight.”

His voice softens immediately. “Kid—”

“I’ll take the subway. There are police everywhere, I’ll be alright,” you say. “I’ll call you when I get home.”

Happy is quiet for a moment. He understands before you have to explain it.

“Call me as soon as you get there,” he says at last.

“I will.” You hang up and make your way toward the station.

The subway ride is mercifully uneventful. You choose the busiest car, take a seat near the doors and spend most of the journey watching the dark windows for reflections that linger too long. No one pays you any attention. No one follows when you transfer lines, and by the time you emerge onto your street, your pulse has finally begun to settle.

The walk from the station is quiet. You keep one hand around your phone and the other tucked inside your coat, fingers resting against the security fob. It might have been useless tonight, but it still felt comforting against your fingers.

When you reach the entrance to your apartment building, you call Happy.

“I’m here,” you tell him as you unlock the outer door.

“At your apartment?”

“At the building.”

He sighs. “That isn’t the same thing.”

“It’s one broken elevator away.”

“Stay on the phone until you’re inside.”

You roll your eyes, although he cannot see it. “Yes, Happy.”

Movement above the building opposite yours catches your attention.

A red-and-blue figure crouches at the edge of the roof, nearly disappearing against the dark brick. Had he not shifted, you might never have noticed him.

You stop with one foot inside the doorway.

Spider-Man followed you home.

“Everything okay?” Happy asks.

Your gaze remains fixed on the rooftop. Spider-Man raises one hand in a tentative wave, as though being caught watching your building is only mildly embarrassing.

“Apparently, I had an escort.”

Happy falls silent for half a second. “What does that mean?”

“Spider-Man followed me home.”

“He did what?”

The volume of his voice forces you to pull the phone away from your ear. Across the street, Spider-Man points toward it and tilts his head, silently asking whether something is wrong.

You give him a flat look.

“Go home,” you call out.

Happy makes a strangled sound. “Are you talking to him?”

“You told me to stay on the phone.”

“That did not mean confront the masked vigilante who followed you to your apartment.”

“He also saved my life.”

“And then followed you home.”

“Yes, Happy. I’m aware of the mixed signals.” You rub your forehead. “I’ll call you once I’m upstairs.”

“Keep me on the—”

“I’ll be five minutes.”

“Three.”

“Goodbye, Happy.” 

You end the call before he can renegotiate and send him a quick message promising that you are safely inside the building. Technically, half of you is.

When you look up again, Spider-Man is no longer on the opposite roof.

A flash of red and blue drops into view. Your hand tightens around the door as a web catches somewhere above the street, carrying him in a smooth arc toward your building. He lands several storeys above you, one hand and both feet fixed against the brick.

You stare up at him. “That is not going home.”

“I wanted to make sure you got inside safely.”

“I told you not to follow me.”

“I know.”

The easy admission catches you off guard.

He does not offer another questionable explanation about patrolling or advanced hearing. He remains where he is, keeping a comfortable distance between you.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “After what happened, I didn’t feel right leaving you alone.”

Some of your irritation slips away despite your best efforts. It would be much easier to remain suspicious if he sounded defensive. Instead, he sounds tired and painfully sincere.

Your father’s warnings remain in the back of your mind. Masks conceal more than faces. Good intentions do not automatically make someone harmless. Tony had known plenty of heroes who meant well and still left destruction behind them.

But without Spider-Man, those men would have forced you into the waiting car.

You release a slow breath. “Thank you for helping me. Truly. But you can’t make a habit of following me home.”

“I won’t.”

Despite yourself, you smile. “I’ll send you a gift basket as thanks, provided you leave me alone afterward.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “I don’t need a gift basket.”

“I guess that saves me a trip.”

He still does not move.

You tilt your head. “This is the part where you leave.”

His attention drops to your hand. “How badly are you hurt?”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“It’s still bleeding.”

He’s right. You tug your sleeve lower with your uninjured hand, hiding the blood and bruising. “I promise it looks worse than it feels.”

Spider-Man’s posture changes. The humour disappears from him so abruptly that you notice the difference even from the ground. His fingers press into the brick, and the white lenses narrow into sharp slits.

“They should’ve been webbed to something taller,” he mutters.

“It’s okay. The police have them now.”

“That doesn’t mean—” He stops and forces some of the tension from his shoulders. “Good. That’s good.”

You study him. “You seem awfully angry for someone who met me less than an hour ago.”

“I get angry when people are hurt.”

“People generally, or me specifically?”

His head turns toward the street.

“People generally,” he says after a moment.

You do not believe him. There is something far too personal in the way he keeps looking at your injured hand, as though seeing them hurts him more than it should.

He starts crawling higher.

“You keep trying to leave whenever I ask a reasonable question,” you call after him.

“I have somewhere to be.”

“Patrolling?”

“Yes.”

“Somewhere that isn’t directly above my head?”

He pauses. “I wasn’t stalking you.”

You roll your eyes. “That’s what the other one says.”

Spider-Man straightens against the wall. “What other one?”

“My other stalker.”

“I’m not your stalker.” He sounds genuinely offended.

“He would probably say that too.”

Instead of leaving, Spider-Man shoots another web above the entrance and lowers himself until he is hanging upside down a few feet from you.

“You actually have a stalker?”

“Apparently, I have two.”

“I’m not—” He stops, visibly reconsidering the argument. “Who is the first one?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because someone following you after what happened tonight seems worth caring about.”

The sincerity in his voice takes some of the edge from your response.

“My new neighbour,” you explain. “He showed up in one of my lectures this morning, used an obviously fake name, then somehow moved into the apartment across from mine before I got home.”

Spider-Man goes quiet.

“That does sound bad,” he says eventually.

A tired laugh escapes you. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. You just remind me of him.”

“I’m not sure whether I should be offended.”

“It’s nothing specific. You both have a habit of saying too much and then becoming noticeably worse at lying.”

He shifts slightly on the web but does not answer.

The amusement fades as you glance toward the glass door at your back. Saying everything aloud makes the day sound worse than it had in your head: Maynard in your lecture, Maynard across the hall, Maynard knowing how to open your lock.

Your fingers tighten around the edge of your sleeve with your good hand. Without noticing, you press your nails into the centre of your palm.

“Don’t do that.”

You look down.

Pale crescents have already formed beneath your nail.

“Do what?”

“That.” Spider-Man gestures toward your hand. “You do it when you’re scared.”

Your fingers slowly uncurl. “How do you know what I do when I’m scared?”

His head lifts sharply.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. Traffic hums at the far end of the street, and somewhere above you, an air-conditioning unit rattles in its frame.

“You were doing it earlier,” he says.

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You might have been.”

You shake your head. “I wasn’t.”

His hand tightens around the web. “It’s a common stress response.”

“Did you also learn that from WebMD?”

He has no answer. Behind the mask, you can almost feel him searching for one.

The longer the silence lasts, the more the unease beneath your skin grows. Maynard had looked at you the same way that morning, as though he knew things he had no right to know and could not decide how much of himself to reveal.

“I should go,” Spider-Man says.

“Of course you should.”

He fires a web toward the roof but hesitates before allowing it to pull him away.

“Always double check that you’ve locked your doors.”

“I have a Stark security system.”

“You also had a Stark security key fob.”

Your eyes narrow. “Good night, Spider-Man.”

A quiet laugh comes from behind the mask. “Good night.”

He disappears over the roof.

You remain in the doorway for several seconds, staring at the empty brick where he had been. Then you step inside and allow the door to swing shut.

Your uninjured hand is still open at your side. The small crescents left by your nails remain visible in your palm.

You have done that for as long as you can remember. Pepper used to notice and gently uncurl your fingers without saying anything.

Tony noticed once too.

You had been fourteen, waiting backstage at a Stark Industries benefit while a security threat delayed the event. Your father had crouched in front of you, taken your hand, and tapped the marks in your palm with one finger.

You’re going to puncture your own hand doing that, kid.

No one else knows about it.

No one else should.

a/n: thank you so much for reading part one! this fic somehow grew far beyond what i originally planned, so i decided to split it into four parts!

comments, likes, and reblogs are always appreciated <3